Congress Returns to Spending Bills Loaded With Pork

[Buttercup McToots]

November 15, 2006
Congress Returns to Spending Bills Loaded With Pork
by Brian M. Riedl and Michelle Muccio
WebMemo #1256
View a list of pork projects in the FY 2007 appropriations bills

Congress’s pork gravy train rolls on despite promises to slow or stop it. As Congress returns to finish the final 11 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2007, it will take up House and Senate bills currently containing an estimated 10,000 pork projects, about as many as last year. Members of Congress should listen to the demands of frustrated voters and eliminate these projects.

Historically, Congress funded grant programs and then asked federal agencies, governors, and mayors to award the grants competitively to the most capable applicants. But over the past few years, Congress has increasingly bypassed such competition and selected (or “earmarked”) grant recipients on its own, such as the Alabama Beef Connection and the Montana World Trade Center. No longer do grant seekers just submit persuasive grant proposals to unbiased agencies; today, they must play the Washington influence game and hire lobbyists to win federal funds.<1>

Giving lawmakers their own pot of taxpayer dollars to distribute as they wish invites corruption. Not surprisingly, the media has been saturated with stories of lawmakers earmarking federal grants to projects directly benefiting campaign contributors, friends, relatives, and even themselves.

In addition to waste and corruption, lawmakers’ obsession with pork raises a larger concern about the role of the federal government. Members of the U.S. Congress—a national legislature that has historically debated war, Americans’ rights, and broad economic policy—have become, in the words of Rep. Dan Lungren (R–CA), “mere errand boys for local government and constituents.”<2>

This year, Congress did not address the looming spending tidal wave of Social Security and Medicare but did decide that State Street in Madison, Wisconsin, could use some upgrades. Congress did not pass comprehensive immigration legislation, but it did decide that the public swimming pool in Banning, California, could use another $500,000 in renovations. Vital national issues go ignored by lawmakers who are instead focused on whether a certain intersection in Westchester County, New York, needs a traffic light.

Tending to such matters is why state and local governments exist. Perhaps Congress does not believe that local governments can handle the job; House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R–IL) endorsed congressional pork by asking rhetorically, “Who knows best where to put a bridge or a highway or a red light in their district?”<3> Not mayors or city councils, apparently.

Of course, lawmakers say these projects are vital to “bringing home federal dollars.” In reality, earmarks are carved out of funding streams that were already coming back to state and local governments and local organizations anyway. All of the earmarks taken from the $5 billion Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program for parks, pools, street signs, and community centers just reduce the pot of money left over to distribute to local governments for the projects they would choose, such as housing subsidies for poor families now stuck on the waiting list. But earmarks generate press releases and campaign contributions for lawmakers who have only tied strings to federal money that was already coming home
snip>

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/upload/pork_projects.html

Some of the Pork Projects in the Remaining FY 2007 Appropriations Bills

Chamber Approps Bill Amount Project
House TTHUD $500,000 Renovate the Public Pool in Banning, California
House Labor-HHS $175,000 Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy
Senate Agriculture $1,000,000 Mormon Cricket & Grasshopper Activities in Utah
Senate TTHUD $800,000 National Women's Hall of Fame, Seneca Falls, New York
House TTHUD $500,000 Traffic Calming, Windermere, Florida
House Commerce $250,000 Montana World Trade Center
Senate Labor-HHS $1,000,000 Clinton School of Public Service, Little Rock, Arkansas
House Labor-HHS $75,000 ArtsQuest—The Banana Factory, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
House TTHUD $700,000 Parking Lot Repairs, Asnuntuck Community College, Enfield, Connecticut
House TTHUD $150,000 Mt. Zion Federal Credit Union, San Antonio, Texas
Senate Commerce $575,000 Detroit Renaissance
House Agriculture $365,156 Potato Breeding, Aberdeen, Idaho
Senate Agriculture $842,000 Alabama Beef Connection
Senate Agriculture $227,000 Dairy Education in Iowa
House Agriculture $387,976 Manure Management Research, Ames, Iowa
House TTHUD $400,000 Signal/Intersection Improvement, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Senate Interior $250,000 Mother's Day Shrine Building, Grafton, West Virginia
Senate Agriculture $591,000 Montana Sheep Institute
House Agriculture $392,832 Citrus Waste Utilization, Winter Haven, Florida
House Interior $250,000 Capitol Music Hall, West Virginia
Senate Agriculture $573,000 Food Marketing Policy Center, Connecticut
Senate DC $350,000 National Council of La Raza, Washington DC
House TTHUD $250,000 Construction of a Park, Portland, Indiana
House TTHUD $500,000 Intermodal Parking Garage, Fitchburg, Massachusetts
House TTHUD $1,000,000 Xerox Area Road Improvements, Monroe County, New York
Senate TTHUD $200,000 Tom Green County Library, Texas
Senate Commerce $300,000 City of Columbus Train Depot
House Agriculture $603,409 Pecan Scab Research, Byron, Georgia
Senate Agriculture $587,000 Ohio-Israel Agriculture Initiative
Senate Agriculture $6,371,000 Wood Utilization Research in 10 States

I like this one...What is a Morman Cricket anyways...?
$1,000,000 Mormon Cricket & Grasshopper Activities in Utah
Text

[louis-t]

1. Being people who claim that privatization will cure all ills...

they sure love to spend public money.

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. About the "mormon cricket" question

They are a species of katydid, not actual crickets. Beyond that, though, they are essentially locusts and have long been a very serious agricultural pest.

Wikipedia entry for Mormon cricket

[ashling]

4. Are they polygamous?

I hear they have a beautiful choir. But then I like to hear cicadas and crickets.

[TechBear_Seattle]

6. Not any more

Nowadays, they are wingless insects that procreate beyond all sanity, then go on a rampage devouring everyting in their path. :hi:

[ashling]

7. that is because they have too many wives

[freeplessinseattle]

10. yep, I grew up there and they'd fly up into my bike spokes

it was pretty gross and traumatic. They were so abundant but I never got used to them. I read a few years ago that the SLC suburb Toole was overrun by swarms of grasshoppers that would cover the entire side of people's houses. reminds me of that chapter in the Laura Ingalls Wilder tales. they're relatively harmless but the stuff of nightmares.

[DemReadingDU]

3. That's a lot of porky pig!

[madrchsod]

5. the two lowest amounts on the list go to a libary

and an art commune.

http://www.bananafactory.org/
Banana Factory - Community Arts Center and Gallery

[Blackhatjack]

8. Throw Them All Out And Start Over ..... n/t

[Buttercup McToots]

9. Pecan Scab Research?

$603,409
Pecan Scab Research, Byron, Georgia

Is that for research on Pecans?

[TechBear_Seattle]

11. It is a fungus disease that affects pecan trees

From TreeHelp.com's entry on Pecan Scab:

Pecan scab first appears as small, circular, olive-green spots that turn to black on the newly expanding leaves, leaf petioles and nut shuck tissue (see Figures 5 and 6). All tissues are most susceptible when young and actively growing. Lesions expand and may coalesce. Old lesions crack and fall out of the leaf blade, giving a shot-hole appearance. Nut infections cause the greatest economic damage. Early infections may cause premature nut drop but more commonly cause the shuck to adhere to the nut surface, causing sticktights. Late infections can prevent nuts from fully expanding and decrease nut size.

From what I remember of nut horticulture, the "nut shuck" is the "fruit" of a nut tree; the nut itself is actually the seed at the center of the fruit. Normally, when the nut is ripe, the shuck dries up and peels away, allowing the nut to fall. The blight effectively fuses the shuck to the nut. Under quality control regulations (which are a different matter entirely), these "sticktights" must be destroyed in order to prevent further spread and can not be sold or otherwise used. Entire crops can be lost in a hot, humid year.

Like the Mormon cricket issue, this isn't necessarily pork. Of course, it all depends on who is getting the money and what kind of research they are doing.

[Blue_In_AK]

12. What? WHAT??

Are you saying that other states get pork besides Alaska? I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you.